It’s about 2 years now since I completed my OU degree and I’ve been thinking about the things I could have done better.
Below are some tips that might be useful if you are considering doing an OU degree, although first I’ll mention the structure of how credits toward the degree are worked out as this is a key area where personal gains can be made.
For an honours degree you need 360 credits from a variety of modules, it is suggested that you do 120 credits at each of levels 1, 2 and 3. Loosely, 1 credit is the equivalent of 10 hours of study. Some modules at each level are compulsory. Modules are typically worth 30 credits but there are exceptions to this as there are some worth 60 and a small number worth 20 or 10. Your degree result is arrived at by a calculation based on 240 credits from your level 2 and level 3 course results. Any compulsory level 2 or 3 courses have to be counted in that calculation. So that’s 360 credits of which at least 240 must come from level 2 and 3 courses with at least 120 at each of those two levels.
I didn’t follow this exact path as I only took two modules at level 1. One of those was a compulsory module for the degree path I had chosen and the other a maths module that I thought it would be useful for my area of study, IT and Computing. I took additional level 2 courses to make up the 60 credits I had not taken at level 1.
I decided to follow this path after I had started the compulsory course. I already worked full time in the field that I had chosen to study and had quite a lot of experience. The compulsory course, although it filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge, was quite basic in many places and very easy for me to complete. As other courses I could choose to do at that level didn’t appeal to me, other than the maths, I chose not to do any. I felt this was the right decision at the time and so it proved later as I got the opportunity to do lots more in depth work with the additional level 2 courses. In some areas, maths for example, I definitely wouldn’t skip the level 1 course. Maths is one of those subjects where if you miss a tiny piece of understanding early on then it will be very difficult to catch up later on as there will be knock on effects. Depending on the degree type chosen there may be more compulsory courses at each level than I had to do.
I had no great difficulty with the level 2 courses other than finding enough time. Time was always a problem. Many OU courses are run twice per year but not all of them. This gives you the option of doing two courses in a year and only having a short overlap, you will need to plan for this and that will require detailed knowledge of presentations of the courses included in your degree. The overlap is usually where time pressure will be felt. However, some courses are only presented once a year, and if you happen to have chosen two that coincide then you will be doing two concurrent courses, this will add greatly to workload and time pressure. Some courses are worth 60 credits as was my compulsory level 2 course. 60 credit courses will usually last a few months longer than a 30 credit course. Unfortunately there isn’t as much flexibility with courses as there was before changes to tuition fees in 2012 and there appears to have been a knock on effect that there are now fewer courses that run twice per year.
If you have a clear idea what you would like to do for your level 3 courses then consider doing some of them in the same year as level 2 courses, i.e. one level 2 and one level 3 in the same year, with a slight overlap but not concurrent if possible. If you proceed as if you are at a bricks and mortar university moving from level to level as if you are following yearly increments then you will struggle later as almost all the level 3 courses will run concurrently. The flexibility of level 2 courses suddenly vanishes. There is no need to duplicate the restrictions of a physical university so take advantage of that where possible.
I made a mistake of doing two level 3 courses in the same year as well as a 20 credit level 2 course and a compulsory 10 credit level 2 course. I thought having the level 2 courses overlapping at each end of the year wouldn’t be a problem. This was an absolute nightmare year. It was the equivalent of doing three quarters of a full time university course and also working full time. It is no surprise that I got my worst marks during this year. If I had made a better plan of which courses I wanted to do then due to the fact that I did a lot of level 2 courses I could have organised this to be a much more manageable workload. This was down to indecision about which level 3 courses I wanted to do as well as not recognising how much work it was going to involve. Trying to shoehorn two fairly lightweight level 2 courses in wouldn’t have been a problem normally, however the concurrent workload of each level 3 course was very much more than I anticipated. If you can determine early which level 3 courses you really want to do are then you will be able to make a better plan and incorporate some of them into level 2 study years with a short overlap between the two courses. If at all possible don't do two level 3 courses concurrently. My assumption here is that you are working full-time, if not then it will be possible to make much more of these options.
Make sure you have plenty of time. You will see this mentioned again and again.
Wherever possible try and get ahead as there will be life events that will cause you to struggle to find study time or to be able to concentrate.
My mum became ill and then died during the early stages of my level 2 courses, fortunately the course supervisors were very helpful and flexible with regard to late hand in of assignments once they were aware of the situation. The support received will be relatively short term in comparison to the personal effect and emotional drain that a bereavement will have on you. I was in a complete mess for a long time.
I got concussion due to a mountain biking accident during the period where I had to hand my final result in for my compulsory 60 credit level 2 course. I lost almost 3 weeks due to not being able to read, write, think, etc, although during the final week of swirly-headedness I wrote up my assignment. Fortunately my result hadn’t suffered, maybe the concussion even helped in that I was less critical… I’ve no idea how I managed it as again I was in a complete mess.
Work often got in the way. Assignments are usually due in on a Monday/Tuesday meaning that there is generally a rush to complete them on the preceding weekend. Inevitably on that weekend there will be a requirement to fix something that has randomly broken, or do some urgent work out of hours that had only been identified on the Thursday or Friday before. Or planned work on that weekend goes horribly wrong and takes all weekend to resolve. All of these work related things occurred, some of them many times.
The online forums are normally a very useful resource. However, there will be people there who have got so far ahead in the work, many units or even blocks ahead, that they will be asking questions about stuff you don’t have the first clue about. Don’t let this put you under pressure. They have chosen to get ahead, which is good, but inexplicably they want to let everyone else know how far ahead they have got, which is not good. It’s their choice to race ahead and if they then fail to understand something they really shouldn’t be dominating the discussion groups asking for help on a subject which isn’t due to come up for weeks or months. This takes time and resource away from those that may be struggling and really need help and creates quite a bit of noise. It also really annoys those of us that think they are just showing off, whether or not they are showing off they ought to have a little bit of consideration for those not able to streak ahead, maybe they should chip in to discussions where others need help rather than skew the system. Use the forums, they are a good place to discuss particular aspects of a course and to get other viewpoints. Don't be forced to go at someone else's pace, make sure you understand topics, don't rush.
A recent look at the OU website shows that they have had a revamp. It is now very much more difficult to find basic information such as which courses are available for a particular degree, and when the start dates are, and how many presentations there are per year. The information is still there but not it is not presented in an easily useable way. You will need to find out which modules apply for your degree. Look at every one of those modules individually, make a note of how many presentations there are per year and when they are, look out for those with a final presentation date. Try and fit the modules together in a way that means you have as little concurrency as possible and mixes up the later level courses.
Theoretically it is possible to do a part time degree in 6 years, although in reality the dates of particular presentations, the number of courses that may need to be done concurrently, whether there is a 10 credit compulsory course that doesn’t really fit in anywhere, can all have an impact and make this more difficult. If it takes slightly longer than that then you should question whether that is really a problem, is an additional 6 months or a year going to cause difficulties. Don’t get hung up on it as any extra time available can make a huge difference in manageability.
While I am happy with the outcome and the knowledge I gained from doing my degree I am also slightly annoyed that I missed out on getting the highest degree grade by a just a few marks. The year where I did three courses concurrently had the biggest impact on my result. Of course that’s just a stupid grumble I have with myself and my insecurities, in reality it makes no difference, the whole experience was enjoyable and worthwhile.
What about further study?
I like the idea of further study and I’ve considered it although I have not made a decision, here are some questions I’ve asked myself.
Do I have the energy to do it?
Do I have the commitment to do it?
Do I have the time to do it?
What would I gain from it?
Can I afford it?
I have answers to some of these. The last one is key, once you have a first degree any course of study, undergraduate/postgraduate, becomes very much more expensive. If I ignore cost and focus on the first three then I’m not convinced I have any of them! I'll keep thinking.
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